Heather, aka The Diet P.I., is one of my favorite bloggers, and a good friend! She’s a registered dietitian, health journalist, and author, and knows a TON about healthy eating, weight loss, maintaining a healthy weight, etc. Meet Heather everyone!
Here are her top 10 secrets for maintaining a healthy weight and achieving your goal weight: they are easy to adopt, easy to remember, and can help you reach your health goals.
Secret #1: Remember, Food is Fuel! Drastically cutting calories sends your body into starvation mode. This results in a slowed metabolism so your “starving” body can maintain its weight. The trick is to reduce your calories enough to lose weight, but not so much that you negatively affect your metabolism.
Secret #2: Stay Active. Diet and exercise go together like Ginger & Fred and peanut butter & jelly. Both are good parts that, together, make an even better pair. In fact, studies show that weight loss results are much more effective with a combo of decreased calories and increased physical activity. Even small amounts of activity add up! Research shows that even a 10 minute bout of exercise can have positive effects. For a super fast & easy way to exercise, check out Chris Freytag’s Daily Workout.
Secret #3: Treat Yourself. No food or drink is so high in calories, fat, or sugar that including them on occasion within overall healthy eating habits is going to cause a problem. The key is to moderate (not eliminate), so you don’t feel deprived.
Secret #4: Eat Regularly. When you skip meals, your metabolism not only drops, you also tend to overeat at your next meal. Research shows people who eat breakfast (the most commonly skipped meal) are more successful at weight loss then people who ditch their morning meal.
Secret #5: Avoid the Fads. Fad diets, which usually promise speedy weight loss and insist you cut out certain foods or even entire food groups, are not long-term solutions. Not only are these unbalanced diets unhealthy, dieters regain any weight lost more often than not.
Secret #6: Limit Liquid Calories. Drinks (alcoholic and non) are an easy way to load your diet with extra calories. Sodas, coffee drinks, and even nutritious drinks, like milk and 100% juice, can spell trouble for your caloric bottom-line if you’re not careful.
Secret #7: Don’t Resort to Diet Pills (or other quick fixes). Diet pills don’t teach you how to make long-term, healthy changes, and they don’t build fat-burning muscle.
Secret #8: Find YOU Time (and don’t stress!). Stress can have detrimental effects on your health and your weight. Finding time for yourself to reduce stress is equally important to your health as eating well and staying active. Take a few minutes each day to do something you love! I like reading The Daily
Love for a daily dose of inspiration.
Secret #9: Do What Works for You! Research shows that a moderate weight loss of around two pounds per week through healthy, varied food choices, physical activity and permanent lifestyle solutions is the best (and only way) to lose the weight and keep it off. Bottom line: You have to find lifestyle solutions that work for you and your own unique personality. To figure out what your diet type is, try my personalized assessment here.
Secret #10: Hydrate Well and Often. Staying hydrated is key to your health and choosing the right liquids to hydrate your body is essential. Water is the absolute best choice. But drinking plain old water can be boring, I get that, and HINT Water and HINT Fizz, the zero calorie, and zero sugar, unsweetened essence water, are the perfect alternatives to help you stay hydrated.